Our latest Colombian entry is from the north of Colombia, unlike all our past offerings. Finca El Roble is in the department of Santander, near the border with Venezuela; it is one of the first places in Colombia that coffee was grown. Coffees from this area have traditionally been called Bucaramanga, after the city which dominates the region. Bucara is a bird, and manga means wide open space.

El Roble is a 740 acre organic farm owned by Oswaldo Acevedo. It is fairly flat, belying the fact that it is on a small plateau, Mesa do los Santos, perched over 5,000 feet above sea level with one of Colombia's most spectacular canyons, Chicamocha, just a mile or so to the east and steep descents of several thousand feet on the other sides. This creates a unique climate for El Roble.

El Roble has low to moderate rainfall that is distributed in such a way as to produce a single harvest per year, December-January, unlike most Colombian farms which have two harvests per year, due to greater and more evenly distributed rains.

El Roble is also a huge organic chicken farm which produces over five pounds of chicken manure per coffee tree each year. It has over 120 full time employees with a dedicated human resources department.

Last year Mr. Acevedo began a campaign to dramatically upgrade the quality of his coffee, making procedural and structural improvements wherever necessary. This lot is part of that effort and the quality is indeed there!